“The Roaring Twenties,” March 1921-October 1929

“Return to Normalcy”: Republican Warren G. Harding’s winning slogan in the 1920 presidential election: it refers to the idea that the U.S. should return to the ways before the War (or even before the Progressive Era).

“Silent Cal”: Nickname of Calvin Coolidge, who became POTUS when Harding died of a stroke in 1923. Despite sleeping upwards of 12 hours a day while president, Coolidge cleaned up the White House (appointing special prosecutors to investigate scandals), ran a competent foreign policy, controlled spending and promoted business interests that created an era of one of the largest economic expansions in U.S. history. Coolidge retired from the Presidency, not running in the election of 1928.

Nativism: An anti-immigrant movement that grew out of isolationism: it led Congress to enact laws regulating immigration; it also led to a resurgence of white-supremacist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, which became a major political force in the early and mid-twenties, achieving anti-Catholic legislation in Oregon, winning the Governorship of Indiana, and nearly winning local elections in Detroit, Michigan.

Modernism and Revivalism: Deriving from the ideas of Freud, Boaz, and, to a degree, Einstein, and growing as a result of WWI, a cultural movement rejecting traditional values developed. Modernism challenged all authority, whether artistic, musical, or political, to pursue the “new.” At its extreme, it evinced nihilistic qualities, growing out of Nietzsche's statement: “God is Dead; it is time for ‘overman’ to live.”

Amid pressures of Modernism, a revivalism spirit spread through U.S. cities. Evangelists, such as Aimee Semple McPherson and Billy Sunday, brought religion to the masses via the new medium of radio.

Madonna and Child McPherson

Scopes Monkey Trial: 1925 case that brought into focus tensions between tradition and modernism, pitting science against religious fundamentalism. It involved a question of whether a Tennessee science teacher could teach the theory of evolution in public school. The trial caused a national sensation as two of the most famous lawyers in the U.S. argued the case: Clarence Darrow for the evolutionists and former Secretary of State and perennial Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan for the creationists.

The fundamentalists won the case, but Darrow won public opinion. The trial was the basis for the play and film Inherit the Wind.

Gangsters and Bootleggers: People who made illegal liquor, called “Bathtub Gin” and sold it to the public, often in a secret bar or club called a speakeasy. The best-known gangsters and bootleggers included: Al “Scarface” Capone in Chicago.

Culture of the 1920s

Flapper: “New woman” of the ‘20s who dressed in loose-fitting clothing, “bobbed” her hair, went to speakeasies, smoked cigarettes in public, danced “The Charleston,” “sparked” with a man in the rumble seat of his car, and did many things that her mother never would have done.

Charles Chaplin: A leading filmmaker of the silent era. His character, the little tramp, won worldwide fame and popularity in films, such as The Gold Rush and City Lights

The Jazz Singer: The first “talkie” (i.e. first movie with synchronized sound).

George Herman “Babe” Ruth: “The Sultan of Swat, The Colossus of Clout, the leading sports figure in an era that embraced spectator sports of all kinds. He became world-famous as a home-run hitter for the New York Yankees.

Charles A. Lindbergh: Greatest hero of the ‘20s. He was the first to fly an airplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, across the Atlantic. He did it solo, flying from New York to Paris in 1927.

Weaknesses in the Farm Economy

• American farmers who had good times during World War I found demand slowed, and competition from Europe reemerged.

Over-production as a result of new technologies, such as farm tractors and improved irrigation

• The government tried to help in 1921 by passing the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act making foreign farm products more expensive, but it didn’t help much.

• Congress tried to assist farmers by buying up surpluses through the McNary-Haugen bills, but President Coolidge repeatedly vetoed the bills

• Natural Disasters, such as the boll weevil infestations that ruined cotton crops in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi; and the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 that killed thousands and left many more homeless.

•Though the “Roaring Twenties” brought prosperity to many, farmers suffered deeply in the postwar period

Easy Credit: One of the three things that helped to make the 1920s economy boom; the others are new technologies, such as the expanded use of the assembly line to significantly increase productivity, and supply-side tax policies of the Coolidge administration that cut taxes on corporations and the “investor class.”

The most common form of consumer credit came in the installment plan, whereby one could purchase an item and pay it off over time, a little each month.

The result of easy credit was “easy debt,” which in good times could be paid off, but if the economy turned sour, then spending would stop and the economy could crash.

Margin: Method of buying stocks when you do not have the money – person borrows money from a stockbroker and pays him off with interest when his stock makes a profit. Of course, if the stock goes down the person still has to pay off the loan. Margin is an example of easy credit.

“Black Tuesday”: October 29, 1929, the day of the great stock market crash that signaled the beginning of the Depression. The crash did not cause the Depression—a combination of over-production, high consumer debt, and foreign debt caused it—but it sped it up and made bad problems worse.

The Great Depression

Hobos: Unemployed men who rode in boxcars on freight trains, traveling from place to place picking up work when they could find it. They represent the unemployment and suffering during the Depression.

“Hoovervilles”: Makeshift towns created by homeless people–named for President Herbert Hoover, showing that people blamed him for the suffering. Other examples are ”Hoover blankets” (newspapers used by homeless while sleeping); “Hoover flags” (empty pockets turned out)

Bread Lines: A symbol of urban poverty, long queues grew outside soup kitchens as the poor and unemployed in the largest cities lined up and waited for a meal.

They used to tell me I was building a dreamAnd so I followed the mob.When there was earth to plow or guns to bear,I was always there, right there on the job.They used to tell me I was building a dreamWith peace and glory ahead --Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run,Made it race against time.Once I built a railroad, now it's done --Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower, up to the sun,brick and rivet and lime.Once I built a tower, now it's done --Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee, we looked swellFull of that Yankee Doodle-de-dum.Half a million boots went slogging through hell,And I was the kid with the drum. Say, don't you remember they called me Al,It was Al all the time.Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal --Say, buddy, can you spare a dime?

Repeat last verse

Dust Bowl: Amid the economic crisis that hit farmers particularly hard, the weather added insult to injury: a drought and over-tilling caused a loss of topsoil which when pushed by winds caused blinding dust storms that overtook the Midwest and plains; to escape the dust bowl many farmers, called Okies, moved to find work and opportunity in California.

Okies

The New Deal, 1933-1940

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR:

Democratic POTUS, 1933-1945. He was disabled by polio —confined to a wheelchair, although the public did not know it.

He won the nomination for president by promising to give Americans a “New Deal”. The idea promised relief for those hurt by the Depression; and recovery for the economy through labor reform and increased government spending. In his inaugural address, he set out to restore the public's faith in the government and the economy and to relieve people's fears about the future.

“Let me first assert my firm belief,” he declared, “that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” He asked Congress for and received “broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency.”

“Bank Holiday”: Established by the Federal Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933, the holiday was the first plank in the New Deal because in large part the Depression was a banking/credit crisis. It closed banks so they could review their books, determine solvency, and reopen for business. It helped to restore people’s trust in banks and ended panic.

“Fireside Chat”: FDR spoke directly to the American people via radio. The chats informed citizens of New Deal policies and won great personal support for FDR.

Civilian Conservation Corps: New Deal program designed to keep young men (18-25) busy and out of trouble by sending them to camps in the woods. Men whose families were on relief were enrolled and paid thirty dollars per month to build roads through forests, plant trees, build erosion walls along rivers, etc. Because room and board was paid for in the camps, twenty-five dollars of the pay had to be sent home to their families.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: Part of the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933, the FDIC is a government insurance company that guarantees the security of bank deposits: people will get their money even if the bank goes out of business. It restores trust in the banking system.

To answer critics and overcome the Supreme Court’s opposition, FDR pursued a Second New Deal. It focused on relief and recovery, but also reformed the country’s economic and social problems.

Unlike the more radical reforms in the Communist Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, FDR sought reform while keeping the structure of capitalism, under what some call “corporatism.”

Most notably, the Second New Deal included Social Security.

The Second New Deal changed expectations about federal government assistance to the needy, but it did not end the Depression.

Second New Deal: